


Not with a Bang

by Brigdh



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Community: 31_days, Drugs, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-11
Updated: 2010-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:19:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigdh/pseuds/Brigdh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drug use, vague references to self-violence.<br/>Notes: Written for the 31_days' prompt, "The earth seemed unearthly". Title from T.S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men'. 500 words exactly. Set during Swordspoint, immediately after Alec returns from the whole Lord Horn kidnapping thing.<br/>Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to Ellen Kushner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not with a Bang

It had been fine until Richard left.

Strange, that. Alec had thought that Richard would be the hardest part of returning; that is, after he'd begun to think of it at all. He had spent the entire carriage ride into the city convinced that Horn had been mistaken, listening for the orders to stop, to turn, to take him back. The carriage had jolted so hard he can still feel the shaking in his bones; it makes his fingers tremble, and he moves slowly to unwrap the package. Inside, there are small sticky squares, lined up like children's candy, and green as arsenic.

It wasn't until he was walking through Riverside that it occurred to him to wonder what it would be like, now that he was once again not-dead. Richard wouldn't say anything- Alec knew Richard's self-control too well- but he would see, and that would be worse. To think of his calm blue eyes, watching, _knowing_ what it had been like-

Alec had halted. The city seemed a different place around him, one empty and flat. The temperature had dropped since the day of the theatre, though, and he hadn't been dressed for the cold; eventually he began to shiver, and then he went home.

But he'd been wrong. Richard had been salt in the wounds, but it was worse to be alone. It was only then that his mind had begun to cloud, the memories dragging at him like fishhooks in flesh, pulling him down into some awful sea. He'd wanted anything to make it end, but some impulse had stopped him from seeking out a fight. He hated these vacillations of his, a self-loathing that made his eyes burn and his muscles clench, but it was still better than the fear. Even though it had been a long time, it wasn't hard to find someone selling a slower sort of suicide; it was Riverside, after all.

Fool's Delight. And it is foolish to need these things: drugs, and violence, and Richard. They won't protect him. But he clings to them, pathetic, because on his own he can't control it; even as he burns with hate for this weakness, still his thoughts circle endlessly around the hole in the world where there is only Horn and his own helplessness. Fool's Delight makes him think of the University; memories with less fear, at least, if just as much self-loathing. He'd wanted to know everything. He places a piece on his tongue- its gritty-sugar taste nearly too sweet- and closes his mouth to melt it. It is a long wait as the drug slowly dissolves, filling his mouth with thick, viscous syrup that overwhelms every other taste he has ever known, then smothers all his senses. The drug changes things, detaches the user from worry or concern, letting them see things objectively. He'd used it to learn truth, before. Now he swallows, feeling the warmth and lassitude spread through his veins. He takes another piece, and waits to forget.


End file.
